Following on from my blog a couple of weeks ago about content marketing, I thought I would share some tips about actually how to do content marketing.

However, before you get started with your content marketing, there is something that you should know – a lot of it doesn’t work. But don’t worry, they often fail because they have not taken into account one of the following areas. Do your content marketing a favour and have a think about the following:

Create a content plan: Make sure that you have done your homework – namely worked on developing some really important keywords and spoken to a wide range of customers who have told you about their interests, hopes and concerns. You should integrate this into other key dates from your industry / society and you will never be staring at that blank screen again wondering what to write about.

What format should my content be in? This is an important question. It is easy to think of content as a written article like this, but it doesn’t have to be that – it could be an image (e.g. an infographic), a video, a slide-share, an audio file, etc. Your audience should help you decide which format is right – which one will resonate best with them?

How long should my content be? If you choose to write an article, then how long should it be? Look at it from the two important perspectives of SEO – the user and the search engine. From the user’s perspective, if you can make your point and achieve your objective succinctly, then you should do that. If it needs to be longer, that is OK too. From the search engine’s perspective, the picture isn’t as clear. There have been numerous studies into finding the perfect word length and conclusions are often conflicting. However, in my experience, articles which are between 800 and 1,500 words seem to work best

Make your content visually attractive: This sounds obvious, but not every piece of content is good to look at. Video and images are content in their own right, but they can also support a written article to make it more interesting. When articles which have a featured image are shared on social media, often that image forms part of the post – which makes the post more attractive and yet more shareable. A virtuous circle!

Consider where your audience will see your content: Are your audience likely to be seeing your content in business hours and on a desktop / laptop computer or will it be seen on the move on a tablet or smartphone? You should make sure that your content looks great regardless of the device on which it is being seen.

Always optimise your content: This is a really simple one, but it is overlooked a surprisingly large amount of the time. Make sure that the following are optimised:

Have a plan for the distribution of the content: Are you going to segment your audience and promote your content differently to different people? Are you going to post it on social media? Are you going to advertise your content on social media too to drive the number of impressions? Are you going to share your content with the influencers that you have engaged on social media (this is part of your content strategy, right?). All important considerations for your content.

Do you have any content marketing tips? Leave a comment and let me know!